Transferring SNMP messages over UDP with compression of periodically repeating sequences

Abstract

UDP messages incorporating respective payloads are transferred by the steps of first encoding each of the payloads into hexadecimal format and then compressing the encoded payloads based on the recognition of sequences that periodically appear in the respective messages.

1. A method of transferring User Datagram Protocol messages each incorporating a data unit, the method comprising:
 compressing the data unit; 
 encoding the compressed data unit into hexadecimal format; and 
 encapsulating the encoded results into a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) message having a plurality of variable binding Object Identifier (OID)/value pairs having a common OID code, wherein the encapsulating further includes distributing portions of the encoded results across multiple values of the OID/value pairs having a common OID code. 
 
   
   
     2. The method according to  claim 1  wherein the compression is performed according to a technique of gzip type. 
   
   
     3. A method for receiving messages, comprising:
 receiving, at a receiver device, a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) message; 
 identifying a plurality of variable binding Object Identifier (OID)/value pairs in the message, the OIDs in the pairs having a peculiar code; 
 assembling a compressed data unit from data values in the identified OID/value pairs having the peculiar code; and 
 decompressing the compressed data unit and reconstructing a second SNMP message from the decompressed results. 
 
   
   
     4. The method according to  claim 1 , wherein encapsulating the encoded results into a SNMP message comprises:
 reading by bytes the compressed data unit and converting it into ASCII characters; and 
 generating a set of Variable Bindings including a first OID indicative of the size of the original file and subsequent OID/value pairs carrying parts of the compressed data unit converted into ASCII characters. 
 
   
   
     5. The method according to  claim 3  wherein identifying the plurality of variable binding Object Identifier (OID)/value pairs in the message comprises the operations of:
 hexadecimal decoding the data values in the identified OID/value pairs. 
 
   
   
     6. The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 using a variable binding OID/value pair to identify a transmission or reception port to be used for SNMP message transmission or reception. 
 
   
   
     7. The method of  claim 1 , wherein a first one of the plurality of variable binding OID/value pairs having the common OID code has, as its value, information identifying an original file size for a data file whose data is in the values of the remaining others of the plurality of variable binding OID/value pairs having the common OID code. 
   
   
     8. The method of  claim 1 , wherein the data that is encoded in the step of encoding includes both an SNMP header and a Protocol Data Unit (PDU) of an SNMP message. 
   
   
     9. The method of  claim 1 , wherein the common OID code is a portion of the OID.